


this is a truce.

by talking_tina



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Angst, Drabble, Fighting, Friendship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-10
Updated: 2014-05-10
Packaged: 2018-01-24 06:57:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1595762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/talking_tina/pseuds/talking_tina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Patrick's twenty-eight, and he's lived forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	this is a truce.

**Author's Note:**

> The trials and tribulations of life.
> 
> Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction using fictional characters based in the likenesses of real people. Never happened, and I do not own these names.

Patrick is seventeen years old, and listening to the rumble of the van as they amble down the highway.

He's bundled up in the back, on a mountain of dirty clothes, sleeping bags, and Joe Trohman, who is snoring away on top of Patrick's calf. Patrick's half asleep himself, eyes drooping and mind slow. He catches Andy's eye in the rear view mirror a few times, and smiles when he does. (Patrick never sees him smile back, but there are always wrinkles in the corner of the drummer's eyes when he returns his gaze to the near pitch-black road, so Patrick settles for mirror-hidden grimaces instead.)

Pete's sprawled across from the mountain of clothes, blankets, and Joe, resting his head on one tattooed arm and eyes trained on the filthy van floor. Sometimes Patrick catches his gaze on accident and they grin at each other, reaching out their arms to link pinkies, because they're both secure enough in their sexualities to admit that they _totally_ have grade-school crushes on each other.

When Patrick wakes up, it's dawn, and Pete's still holding his hand.

x

Patrick's twenty, and he's fucking pissed off.

"What's your  _fucking problem_ , Pete?" he's yelling, shoving Pete for emphasis at the beginning of  _problem_. "You think you can just—you think you can just chicken out of all your fucking worries with this shit? With a bottle of fucking Ativan?" Patrick picks up the bottle—the last one in the cabinet, he made sure to throw everything else out the window—and slams it against the ground. It hits with a sharp crack, but doesn't break. Pete winces. "Well, here's some fucking news for you, Pete, if you try— _if you even try_ —any of this shit again, so help me, I will follow you to  _Hell_  and back and shove all of your fucking problems back in your fucking face until you know how to deal with them, okay? Wracked— _wracked with self-doubt_? Since when do you  _doubt_  yourself, Pete? You're Pete Wentz! Type-A asshole since 'seventy-nine!"

"Why don't you  _shut the fuck up_ , 'Trick, okay?" Pete finally interjects, shocking Patrick out of his rant, blue eyes wide. "Do you think—do you think I fucking do this for attention? That I—that I would leave you behind to deal with all this shit instead? I was scared—we were  _both_  scared, Patrick, you know that! Scared of this stupid fucking album and scared that it was gonna be a flop, and that I, who dragged you into this mess, would've been the one who screwed you over this stupid fucking job of ours! I just—I needed to stop everything before it got worse! And I was trying to keep away from you so that when I finally did, when I finally hit rock bottom, you wouldn't—"

"Notice? So that I wouldn't notice, Pete? Do you—do you seriously think I wouldn't  _notice_? That you—Pete Wentz, my best friend,  _my entire life_ —could just disappear and I wouldn't be wrecked? How could you  _think_  that?" His voice cracked twice, and his face is growing increasingly pinker under tears that he doesn't bother to wipe away. "You've been my entire life for the past five _years_ , Pete. There is literally— _literally_  nothing else in the world right now that means more to me than you do. The music, the band, _our career_ —I would rather be starving on the street with you than be anywhere else with you  _dead_. And as much as I hate to say it, and as much as I hate what it would do to everybody else I know, and how selfish it would be—if you had killed yourself, Pete, I would've too. I'm not trying to be fucking romantic or some other literary bullshit, I'm being fucking honest, okay? You're it, Pete. There's nothing else for me, you're it."

It’s silent for a few moments that seemed to stretch into hours, interrupted only by Patrick's hitched breath and Pete's occasional sniffle. He waited, waited for anything from Pete that wasn't just pure  _guilt_.

And suddenly, before either of them know it, they're grasping at each other for dear life, crying into shoulders and muttering, "I'm sorry, I'm so  _sorry_ —" from the bottom of their withered little hearts.

x

Patrick's twenty-one, now, and completely soaked through with freezing cold water as the Texas sun wavered behind the horizon. 

They're only seven dates into the 2005 Warped Tour, and Patrick's already exhausted—all of the shows had been back-to-back dates—but for once, the bands have a free night just to themselves, and it quickly became utterly _disastrous_. A handful of bands decided to invest in an armory's worth of water guns, and—well, Patrick doesn't actually know what happened after that, or how he even became involved, but he knows that, at the moment, he is currently dripping wet and shivering and _aching for revenge_.

Another blast of (cold cold _cold)_ water hits him with enough force to knock him over, and he shrieks, the cold shocking him too far out of his thoughts for any proper reflexes. But soon after, he is pushing his soaked bangs from his face and turning to see the little shit known as Frank Iero, water gun hiked up like a rifle and a grin splattered on his face. "How ya holdin' up, 'Trickster?"

"I'll—I'll tell you how I'm holding up, you little shit, c'mere—" Patrick doesn't have a water gun, but he doesn't need one, because he grabs for Frank instead and they go down in a tangle of limbs and half-assed insults, concrete digging painfully into Patrick’s elbows.

"Hey, Iero! Get your hands off Patrick, he's mine—"

And that is all the warning they have before they both get hit with a frigid blast of water, and Frank sputters from below Patrick for a few precious moments before Pete is hauling them both up by their arms. Patrick blinks, stupidly. “Get your act together boys. This is a _war_ we’re fighting,” he says with a grin, his voice slightly gravelly from overuse, and now Patrick’s grinning too. “And that means, Iero, that you’re now my prisoner. _To the barricade!_ ”

The barricade actually turned out to be the Gym Class bus, into which Frank was thrown rather unceremoniously (which involved a very confused Disashi and a holler of, _“Toro, we’re holding your rhythm guitarist prisoner! Surrender, lest we decide to slit his throat!”),_ before Pete dragged Patrick behind the bus and away from most of the action.

“You ready for this, Rickster?” Pete says as he bends down to refill his water gun from one of the massive buckets of water hiding behind the bus, eyes carefully trained on the enemy line on the other side. “You ready to win this war, and rule like kings?”

“Of course,” Patrick says thoughtlessly, even though he has no idea what war they’re fighting or what land they’re ruling.

It doesn’t matter, he decides.

It never will, as long as Pete fights by his side.

X

Patrick is twenty-three, and he’s livid.

He can’t do anything too drastic—they’re in the middle of an Australian airport at two in the afternoon surrounded by hundreds of innocent bystanders—but that doesn’t mean he’s going to calm down.

After taking a few moments to control his breathing, he hisses across the stiff plastic chair arm, “You know what, Pete? That’s it. I’m done. We’ll—we’ll finish this fucking tour, and then I’m gone.” He swallows. “If you’re gonna act like you’re the only guy in the band, then you might as well _be_ the only guy in the band, you know?”

Pete blinks at him from inches away, wide-eyed, before laughing nervously, an awkward grin tugging hopelessly at the corner of his mouth. “You’re—Patrick, come on, dude, I’m sorry, don’t fuck with me—”

“I’m _not_ fucking with you, okay? Just—it’s this fucking tour, Pete, and then I’m done with you and your bullshit. I’m done. I put up with your shit for eight fucking years, but this, Pete? This is my fucking limit. Believe it or not, I have one, so stop treating me like I’m your fucking bitch.” And at this, he stands up, feeling the need to make a point or something, and marches out of gate and into the mass of people streaming through the airport.

He ends up in the back stall of the men’s restroom, crying.

(Pete cries a bit, too.)

X

Patrick is twenty-five, and fiddling with the half-peeled-off label of his water bottle while Pete paces the room anxiously.

They’re at Pete’s house, in one of his many recreation rooms while Ashlee’s downstairs on the phone with Jessica and keeping Bronx half-entertained with Looney Toons and tickles. Joe’s sitting with his head in his hands, while Andy’s foot is tapping with nervousness.

“I—we can’t do that, Joe.”

Joe groans, and the hands he has fisted in his wild hair (he hasn’t combed it for at least two days, Patrick knows that as a fact) tighten. “I _know_ ,” he says, his voice muffled by the wrists pressed into his face. “We can’t, but we have to, Pete. We’re—the band’s falling to shit, you _know_ —”

“It’s not! The band’s not fucking—” he pauses, lowers his voice, breathing deeply. Someone puts up volume of the TV downstairs. “The band’s _fine_ , okay?”

“Is it, Pete?” Patrick intervenes, and all three of them look to him in surprise, as if they had forgotten he was there. “Is it _really?_ ” He looks around the room (anywhere but their eyes) in an exaggerated eye-roll, and then sighs. “We’re—creatively, I’m exhausted, Pete. And just—I mean, I don’t know, Pete. Maybe _breaking up_ is too extreme, but… we all need a break right now, you know?”

Pete looks at him then, and Patrick almost jumps at the desperation in his eyes, before Pete drops his head. “I—yeah. I guess so.”

Joe looks up blearily at Pete’s sudden meekness, and Andy’s foot stops tapping.

“We’ll be okay, guys,” Patrick says, even though he hasn’t felt so unsure before in his life. He turns away from Pete and towards Joe and Andy, instead, lounging on the same couch together and faces blank. “Someday, we’ll be okay.”

X

“Hey, Pete.”

“ _Hey_ , Lunchbox, Cookie Jar, the love of my life,” Pete says, voice weirdly tinny through the phone line, but still very distinctly Pete’s. “What’s up?”

Patrick grins, leaning back from where he had been hunched over his guitar, scrawling chords out on his paper before he could lose the progression he had just figured out. “Uh, writing. I’ve been kind of a hermit lately. I haven’t done anything outside of the studio in a while.” He sighed. “I need to get this stuff down, though, so. I don’t mind. You?”

Pete huffed. “Meagan’s been dragging my ass around shopping. And I’m picking up Bronx from Ashlee’s today, so the little dude and I are gonna chill.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

“It’s a hell of a plan. Anyways, er—just checking up, you know? I miss you, dude.”

Patrick sits back. “Yeah, I miss you too. But I gotta do this. We’ll see each other soon, okay?”

Pete sighs, the sound crackling through the phone speaker.  “I know, dude. I just needed to hear your voice again, or some shit. Promise me you’ll come say hi to me and the little dude ASAP, ‘kay?”

“I promise. Now get off the phone, dude, you’re gonna crash.”

“Bluetooth!” Pete hollers, and Patrick’s still laughing as he hangs up.

X

Patrick’s twenty-eight, and he’s laughing.

He thinks he’s drunk, but he’s not sure. There’s a lot of happy noise, a hand linked with his (he looks down, it’s Elisa’s slim fingers), and Pete’s stubbly chin somewhere in his peripheral vision. There’s talking, and he’s talking back in a separate corner of his brain, but he can’t make sense of what’s coming out of his mouth. Pete’s laughing now too, though, so he’s not too worried about it.

“We’re gonna live forever,” Pete says, and Patrick’s surprised to realize he understood that bit of dialogue. “Me and you, man, you know? We’re gonna live forever.”

Patrick drops his head to one shoulder and says, “We already have.”

Pete’s eyes smile, too, and Elisa squeezes his hand tighter.

Patrick’s twenty-eight, and he’s lived forever.


End file.
